Thank you all for a great first class. Our destination on Friday is http://www.mapquest.com/mq/2-1o8l (229 Saavedra Road SW) Would the four people who volunteered to drive, please meet us behind the Pearl Building at 9 am? Please let me know if you do not want a ride, so we won't wait for you. We will meet at Chispas Farm, help them with their harvest and Eli has kindly offered to talk with us about their farming. Then we will head to Sanchez park, nearby, to discuss your work and have lunch.
Would any of you who have pictures from our tour of La Posada be willing to post a few? We'd all appreciate it. Thank you!
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should we bring our own lunch?
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ReplyDeleteResponse to the readings:
ReplyDeleteMany of us in America have so far removed ourselves from the process of gathering and hunting food, that we have grown a repulsion towards knowing the point of origin, the process of removal (from habitat), the cessation of its life, the packaging, delivery and sale. It would seem as if a very large portion of Americans would prefer the image often seen on The Jetsons where merely the push of a button produces a warm, complete meal and yet another push sucks away the dirty dish and no thought process, effort or energy is required.
In the selected readings, we see quite the opposite. There is intention, awareness, questions, possible solutions to perceived problems, efforts to change, to utilize sources we have available to us and share them with others, internal and external conflicts playing themselves out and even pensive passions, all in comestible nature.
It would appear that no matter how much cognitive dissonance we experience as individuals or in the collective conscience when it comes to food, something seems pull us towards nature to find peace, resolve, balance and answers.
Thoreau found and fell in love with the divinity in nature by a full immersion. Fallen Fruit found a resourceful way to not only deal with bountiful “waste” but also they became a compass for others in the community who “lost touch” with nature, bringing them back home. Pollman found himself in nature, all of his angels and demons, desires and fears, in a quest to shift paradigms.
It would seem all of our spiritual and earthly queries are surrounded and supported by “food”, be it literal or metaphorical, food is a journey home. Food is the answer, politically, spiritually, socially, mentally, physically, emotionally and ethically.
If found the reading interesting. Having come from a background of ranchers, with my father being a hunter and fisherman I am versed in the culture of food from “the land”. Participation in the slaughter of cows for meat was a yearly activity in my youth. At times on the ranch, I felt that the cattle were treated better than the caretakers! I have hunted but was unable to “take the shot” but greatly enjoyed the connection that the experience provided me. I still enjoy fishing and eat all that I catch. My father grew a variety of vegetables in the backyard as well. I have had the opportunity in my life to live off the land eating only what I could forage. This has created in me a sense of thanks that the earth will provide us with nourishment. The care of the earth, the animals and plants that provide this bounty is a duty to me, we should take no more than what we need and take it with thanksgiving and with kindness.
ReplyDeleteTo jennessmay: Fasting is a wonderful way to in tune the body with the earth. For hunter and gatherers hunger was a driving force. Today our food is readily available to us, for some the over indulgence in food is a daily ritual. I believe that this is a disconnection from the joy of food. As humans sometimes not having is the only way to appreciate what we have. Is not food grand? Carol
ReplyDeletere: car and transport:
ReplyDeleteI have a car and Joy and I must return rather early since we have another field trip to attend. I'll be behind (C: do you mean the parking lot or the odd loading zone in the shaded overhang that faces the screwy parking garage?) Pearl in a red Toyota Matrix, and should have room for two more people to go to the farm. Warning: I have dogs and the car will probably have dog fur amok so be forewarned! Those allergic to dogs should ride with someone else.
There also needs to be planning for those same two to ride back with someone else or also leave early (we have a depart from Pearl at 1 PM sharp departure for studio, apparently....). I'll be there at 9 am with bells on....... or at least gasoline fumes.
Jess
re: car
ReplyDeletei can take three people but i don't know where pearl is.
in addition,my project is heat and light sensitive and i will not be able to leave it in my car for the duration of the farm visit.
is it possible to leave it at the farm (house(?)
re: pics
ReplyDeleteCatherine,
I have some images to share. How do I download them to the blog... or is it not possible?
I am going to make you all authors so you can post images. Look for an email invite.
ReplyDelete@ladyjessiboo
ReplyDeletedoesn' matter. we'll see you in either case.
dear all who posted,
ReplyDeleteYou have made some lovely ideas and some lovely correspondences. We were all sick at my house, so I will have to respond to your essays next Monday, instead of Thursday as I had planned.
Thank you for your effort and your understanding.
-Catherine
Do pardon my lateness. I want to respond in particular to the Fallen fruit movement. I think about how I could eat plenty and yet I forget to do so. There are many people who do not have enough to eat, a fact that is ridiculous to me when food is a basic need for survival... It's like bottled water: Why should someone have to pay $1.25 to meet the most base of human needs? There are so many people in this time who have no idea where there food comes from, how it came into being, who cultivated or harvested it. My project for Assignment 1 speaks to this. I am fascinated with the possibility of urban farming and the whole notion of the "endless orchard." It could possibly provide enough food for a small community and yet give the illusion that it could support an entire city. The point the Viegener made about the government feeding illusions to the people struck a chord with me. On another related note, I see my co-workers bring in the surplus of tomatoes from their gardens. We don't think, as one of my fellow students and I were discussing yesterday, about the prolific tendencies of the tomato plant. When it faces adversity, it fruits out even more than when thoughtfully tended.
ReplyDeleteOn Being a Food Explorer: Musings on The Ominvore’s Dilemma
ReplyDeletePart 1
I’ve enjoyed nibbling on the line Pollan quotes from Levi Strauss, that food must be “not only good to eat, but good to think”. Lately I’ve been a food explorer, and it seems to me this statement is true. It’s how we’re willing to think about an ingestible substance, not what it actually is, that’s central to what we eat. Think about worms, for instance, or grasshopper, or eel. I’ve always tended to avoid exotic seafood, and I only tried eel for the first time last year, on sushi. I guess it was good though a bit rubbery, but the thing is, in my mind it’s still not on the menu, and I probably won’t eat it again unless the context of my food exposures changes significantly.
The other 2, grasshoppers and worms, sound like good protein sources in a pinch. Perhaps I”ll try them too. Earlier this summer I made a worm bin. Soon it will be stocked with red wrigglers, so there you go, ingredient at hand---and the worm bin book had recipes. Most of the time I don’t use them, but that’s with ingredients I know. However, these recipes all combine the worms with meat, so I may wing it even at the start, because I don’t see how one can get a real taste of worm if it’s mixed with meat. The book says to purge the worms first, or it’s a gritty meal. That part of the directions I’ll definitely follow. They go in cornmeal for a while where they exchange grit for ground corn.
Pollan’s evocations of how we’ve removed our food from the realities of earth and the wild, as in his hunting and mushroom stories, make the point well. He doesn’t touch so much on how we’ve also sanitized our minds about it. This is where my latest food thoughts have been: on how we intersect with microbes in our food. They’re not all bad. Think bread yeast, wine must, the beasts that age Limburger. All life, food, human, whatever, germinates.
This perspective on the beasties we so often battle with Chlorox (which kills all life) has offered a new sense of vitality and freedom in the kitchen, and I’ve given myself permission to try out food that has “spoiled”, within reason, using Pollan’s nibble-and-see test.
On Being a Food Explorer: Musings on the Omnivore'sDilemma
ReplyDeletePart 2
One of the microbe explorations was this: I tried growing Kombucha. This mysterious beast, a marriage of yeasts and bacteria, seemed like it might form part of a substitute for carbonated soda, a drink I want to eliminate entirely. Kombucha is a communcal food however; to make it you need a kombucha mother from a fellow grower. I couldn’t find anyone growing it. After consuming a couple dozen bottles of the commercial stuff, it occurred to me that perhaps one could brew it from the brown bits in the bottIes. Still no idea what a mother looked like, but…. my food shopping started taking longer than usual, because I was gazing into all the kombucha bottles on the shelf in search of a mother. After a lot of bottle gazing, I found one with an unusual floater. It looked like an evanescent little mushroom cloud and kitchen-ward it went.
It takes about 2 weeks to make kombucha from tea, sugar, and water. The brew went through a lot of funny stages….thin weird scums on top, streamers, bubbles. About a week and a half in, it looked like perhaps I had….. a mother? She was unexpectedly gorgeous: a shiny thickening white glutinous baklava covering the surface of the brew. After you start this, you have a lot of mothers on your hands. If you want one, call me.
I’ve tried other food creations from “spoiled food” as well. For instance, soymilk that sits out clabbers like buttermilk. I used to throw it out. Then lacking mayonnaise one day, I threw a little sweetener and saltiness into it, a few flax seeds as a thickener and olive oil. It was very passable mayonnaise, and it passed digestive tests. I’ve sampled other spoiled food recently too. Quite innocuous though not as tasty; consequently I’ve forgotten what my bites were of. Ahh, successful omnivory….but, the dilemma still hovers in the wings, and the fine print here is this: be an omnivore in your kitchen if you like, but not because I said so.
Laurie,
ReplyDeleteI finally found your posts! I'd been looking for them since you told me, but I hadn't pursued this corner of the blog. I have a cookbook to share with you. Its all about the food value of "spoiled" (fermented) food. Got to admit, I'm not sure about the worms, but that's because I'm not hungry. If I got hungry, I suppose...
Catherine